Review of Zero to Business - A Course by Johnny B Truant

Who is Johnny B Truant?

Johhny is one of my favourite bloggers. He has made over $10'000 in the first three months of his new blog and has been taking the blogging community by storm. He has guest posted on many blogs, included Problogger and Copyblogger, and has been the subject of a lot of buzz surrounding the release of his latest information product.

Zero to Business is a killer course detailing all the steps needed to create your own business website. He makes the technology seem ridiculously easy and provides step by step video tutorials. Zero to Business is expensive, at $297, but is also incredible value for money.

Can you learn this information elsewhere?

DAY 1: Launch your website

• Get your website hosting
• Launch that blog, yo

This is the type of information that is freely available - both in free and paid products and blog posts. Many people have released free ebooks about it simply because of the affiliate comission they'll get from the hosting. The tutorials are very dependant on you using the same host as Johnny. If this is your main reason for buying, I'd look for information elsewhere. Fortunately though, the remaining modules are awesome and comprehensively build on the information learnt in this module.

DAY 2: Fancy up your boring site

• Tour part 1: Themes and plugins
• Tour part 2: Adding content and more
• Working with widgets
• Make your blog like a normal website
• How to add YouTube videos

This is the module that will useful to many of my friends. They are struggling to get their head around the idea of getting hosting and installing wordpress. I've had people contact me, really scared about how self hosting will change how they use themes and plugins.

Johnny explains all the info in a method that is easy to understand. Again, this information is available elsewhere but I found it really useful to have it all in the one section. I particularly liked his section about making your blog like a normal website. I think this will be really useful for people looking to sell their services online.

DAY 3: Email and some boring stuff

• Create email addresses
• Check your email online
• Create email forward addresses
• Back up your database and site files
• Add more websites and domains (optional)

This is the module where it gets to the really good stuff. I've been blogging for two years and I'm still using hotmail. I've had many of my peers comment on how unprofessional it looks. Johnny explains i easily and then talks about the concepts that you have to think about, but try not to because its too hard.

DAY 4:  Start your emailing machine

• Set that shit up
• Making and configuring lists
• Adding subscribers manually
• Forms: Not just for taxes anymore
• Send something, already
• Pester people with autoresponders

This is the section where it gets really awesome. Many people who are new to online business barely know what they want from a mailing list, let alone how to use one. Yet many prominent internet marketers

DAY 5: Start selling your wares

THE EASY OPTION: e-junkie

• 1. Set it up and look around
• 2. Add products and use links
• 3. The common affiliate program
• 4. Product affiliate programs

THE HARDER OPTION: KickStartCart

• 1. Adding products and categories
• 2. Add buy links to your site
• 3. Just a bit of customization
• 4. The default affiliate program
• 5. Product affiliate programs
• 6. Upsell with autoresponders

I loved this module. This is some of the hardcore information that took me weeks to learn. I still haven't touched kickstart as a method of selling products. This is where Johnny really shows of his skills and you can see just how awesome the course is. This information may be available elsewhere, but I still preferred learning it within the context of the course.

DAY 6: Make $$$ off the backs of others

• Using affiliate links
• TIP #1 – Believe in the value of the product
• TIP #2 – Be proactive/tie to service
• Start with my stuff
• Now find others

You can find some of this information elsewhere, but it is still very useful information for those who are new to affiliate marketing. There is no point having spent so much getting your site up and going only to alienate those readers by spamming them with poor affiliate promotions.

Johnny only covers two of the basic tips but they are very useful, especially within the context of the previous modules.

DAY 7: Keep learning and doing, smarty

• You need to use Twitter
• Search engine strategy
• Awesome resources to check out

This is mostly the type of information you can find on blogs, but makes for a really relevant conclusion to the course.

My thoughts.

I've been talking to a lot of struggling bloggers during the months preceding my blog launch. One of the things they really struggle with is setting up their site. Many times, getting a complete set up costs hundreds of dollars and they are left with no idea about how to maintain it.

Zero to business does cost a fair bit, but it also gives you the skills to do it all yourself. I think its worth doing to avoid leaving potentially thousands of dollars of work and leads on the table.